RESIDENT EVIL (15, 100 mins) Starring Milla Jovovich, James Purefoy, Colin Salmon.

SOMEONE should realise by now that, like TV cartoons and movies, computer games and films do not mix.

Super Mario Bros, Streetfighter, Mortal Kombat and even Lara Croft: Tomb Raider have all failed to excite audiences and critics. Resident Evil looks set to go the same way.

Set mainly in a vast underground labyrinth of laboratories, corridors, store rooms and railway lines, the film follows the fortunes of a small group of people battling for survival after a virus has leaked and turned the people working in this environment into flesh-eating zombies.

The "normal" people must try to find a way to escape before becoming the zombies' next meal, but their flight is further complicated by the fact that some members of their team are not what they seem.

Borrowing heavily from George A Romero's cult zombie movies, Resident Evil does have a sense of lurking menace and there are moments likely to have you jumping out of your seat.

Otherwise, this is a little more than a chase movie that is going for style over substance. Like the computer game, the plot is largely irrelevant; and like the computer game, the aim is to see how many zombies' heads can be blown off by our heroes.

But considering the computer game gained some notoriety for its violence, the film is perhaps not as gory as one might expect. Not that that would make up for deficiencies in the script.

Rating: 5 out of 10